“Bernard Ramm helped lead the way in this theoretical experiment when he made two claims in his classic The Christian View of Science and Scripture. These theorems influenced generations of exegetes, including today’s. They include: “Training in logic and science forms excellent background for exegesis. . . . Systematic teaching of Scripture is the Scriptures’ final intention.”

<Steffen, Tom; Neu, Ray. Character Theology: Engaging God through His Cast of Characters (p. 212). Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition. The quote by Ramm is taken from his book “The Christian view of Science and Scripture” (Grand Rapids, MI: Eeerdmans, 1954).>

Ramm had his early training in Chemistry and then to Philosophy of Science, so I guess he is saying that his own training has helped him become a sound exegete of Scripture.

That may well be. In fact I am tempted to say the same thing regarding myself… but in a way very different from Ramm.

My Bachelor’s degree was in Mechanical Engineering, as was my first Master’s. I trained in Naval Nuclear Engineering in the (you guessed it) Navy. Then I served as a Mechanical Design Engineer for a major defense contractor. That comes to around 9 years of formal training in “logic and science” after high school.

Now that I am in a very different field, does that training help me– and more specifically in Bible exegesis? I think so.

Those 9 years (as well as my secular employment) really helped me see the limitations of logic and science. Logic is useful to get a “feel” for a situation and point out potential weak points in one’s thinking, but is only fully reliable in extremely narrow situations– essentially in mathematics or in other settings where rules are fully formalized and definitions tight. (And of course Kurt Godel helped us know that even then logic has its limits.)

Science as well is a wonderful tool (the scientific method) to analyze the repeatable natural phenomenon in the present. Knowing how to think inductively and deductively with an open-mindedness to learning something new is certainly useful. However, once you know what it can do, one also learns what it cannot. It cannot “prove” anything (which is fine… no shame there). It is really poor with answering most “Why” questions. It does not deal well with the most important questions in life— the one’s most commonly addressed in religion. It does not handle single (not repeating) events at all, and is very limited in addressing history. Its typical way of addressing things that are not natural and repeatable is not so much to say that they don’t exist, but rather that they lack relevance. Of course, that is mainly because those things are like water, and the scientific method is like a saw— the wrong tool for the job.

Once one understands the great limits that logic and science hold in many areas including drawing authorial intent and meaning from historical script, I do believe they have some value.

However, the study of historical text uses the skills more of the lawyer and historian— skills that are very flexible in terms of logic, and quite different from formal science. The goal is a compelling narrative rather than absolute truth. The social sciences that focus on how persons and people in society think and act are also more useful. Steffen and Neu, where I got the quote from, would also say that understanding culture and the role of narrative are also critical. I must agree.

So YES… learn formal logic and science to find out how it is useful and how it is not.